Every year, around 8,000 people die waiting for an organ transplant. There just doesn’t seem to be enough human organs available for those who need them. Biotech company United Therapeutics has been investigating ways to grow pig organs to be used in humans, and in the four years its researchers have been working on it, the company has become the largest commercial backer of xenotransplantation (transplants between species) and has found some initial success.
Emergent BioSolutions Inc. EBS, -1.75% today announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has exercised options under contract 200-2012-52242 for the supply of Vaccinia Immune Globulin (VIGIV) into the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile. VIGIV is a therapeutic licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of complications due to smallpox vaccination. The contract options, valued at $44 million over two years, will require Emergent to collect plasma for future manufacturing in addition to current collection requirements, conduct manufacturing runs, and conduct additional activities in support of maintaining the FDA licensure of VIGIV.
Roche (ROG.VX) is buying U.S. diagnostics firm GeneWEAVE BioSciences for up to $425 million, expanding the Swiss group’s commitment to fighting so-called “superbugs” as the threat from drug-resistant microbes grows.
Roche said on Thursday it would pay shareholders in the privately held Californian company $190 million upfront and up to a further $235 million depending on the future success of its products.
TOPIC: “Innovating through the U.S. Economic Development Administration”
PRESENTER: Julie Lenzer Kirk, Director Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship U.S. Economic Development Administration
ABSTRACT: Housed within the U.S. Economic Development Administration, the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE) works to foster a more innovative U.S. economy focused on turning new ideas and inventions into products and technologies that spur job growth and competitiveness while promoting economic development. Ms. Kirk will discuss OIE programs including: • Promoting and supporting high-growth entrepreneurship. • Accelerating commercialization of federally funded research. • Working with other agencies and the White House to collaborate on policies and programs to support entrepreneurship and commercialization. • Supporting the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE), which is chaired by the Secretary of Commerce. • Leading the $15 million 2014 Regional Innovation Strategies Program competition.
IBM says that Watson, its artificial-intelligence technology, can use advanced computer vision to process huge volumes of medical images. Now Watson has its sights set on using this ability to help doctors diagnose diseases faster and more accurately.
Last week IBM announced it would buy Merge Healthcare for a billion dollars. If the deal is finalized, this would be the third health-care data company IBM has bought this year (see “Meet the Health-Care Company IBM Needed to Make Watson More Insightful”). Merge specializes in handling all kinds of medical images, and its service is used by more than 7,500 hospitals and clinics in the United States, as well as clinical research organizations and pharmaceutical companies. Shahram Ebadollahi, vice president of innovation and chief science officer for IBM’s Watson Health Group, says the acquisition is part of an effort to draw on many different data sources, including anonymized, text-based medical records, to help physicians make treatment decisions.
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A new analysis of data from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) has found that most American adults have experienced some level of pain, from brief to more lasting pain, and from relatively minor to more severe pain. The analysis helps to unravel the complexities of a Nation in pain. It found that an estimated 25.3 million adults (11.2 percent) had pain every day for the preceding 3 months. Nearly 40 million adults (17.6 percent) experience severe levels of pain. Those with severe pain are also likely to have worse health status. The analysis was funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) and was published in The Journal of Pain.
Gliknik Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company, today announced that its licensee Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) has received notification from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that its autoimmune candidate drug GL-2045, a recombinant Intravenous Immune Globulin (IVIG)-mimetic, has been granted orphan drug designation for Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP). CIDP is a rare neurological disorder characterized by progressive weakness and impaired sensory function in the legs and arms.
You can now use 3D printing to create items using a wide range of filaments, and not just plastics. Metals, edibles, bio and construction materials are just some of the examples that are being developed for 3D printing.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Spritam, an epilepsy medication made using 3D printers.
Epigenomics AG (Frankfurt Prime Standard: ECX, OTCQX: EPGNY), the German-American cancer molecular diagnostics company, and BioChain, an early cancer diagnostic company with operations in both USA and China and Epigenomics’ exclusive strategic commercialization partner in China, today announced that testing based on the proprietary Septin9 biomarker was included in the Chinese Guideline on Screening, Endoscopic Diagnosis and Treatment of Early Colorectal Cancer (CRC).
